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EMA guidance on PML

The European Medicines Agency has recommended updated guidance on monitoring people on Tysabri for signs of the brain infection PML. It calls for more caution in treating people who have antibodies to the JC virus beyond two years, and more frequent MRI scans for people at a higher risk of PML.

Ocrelizumab approval process in the US

The FDA, the US drug regulator, has granting "breakthrough therapy designation" to ocrelizumab as a treatment for primary progressive and relapsing MS. This means that it will be assessed more quickly when the manufacturer submits the research trial data later in the year.

Ozanimod trial results

Disease modifying drugs and progression

A poster presentation at the ACTRIMS meeting looked at records of more than 4,000 people with relapsing remitting MS to see how disease modifying drugs affected progression. The results demonstrated the variability of disease activity but that people who had spent a shorter time on the more powerful treatments had a higher chance of reaching the outcome EDSS score.

Investigating the effect of other conditions on MS

As part of an ongoing project, an international group of researchers has drawn up recommendations for studying how having other health conditions (known as comorbidities) can impact on MS. They suggest concentrating on building a better understanding of the impact of treatable comorbidities and question whether having one should exclude people from other trials.